There's general agreement among economists and others that free trade and investment liberalization does leave its casualties, notably those workers who are in sectors that are less competitive internationally, at least in the short term. Frequently those most marginalized, especially in the Latin American environment, are women and indigenous people. Here there does seem to be a tension between the basic orientation, for example, of Canadian international development policy—for instance, the improvement of small handicraft industries, frequently among indigenous women—and our larger foreign economic policy objectives, which will,
when realized, make precisely those industrie ...[+++]s non-competitive, indeed obsolete.
Il semble d'ailleurs exister à cet égard une certaine tension entre l'orientation fondamentale de la politique canadienne de développement international, qui privilégie par exemple le développement de petites industries artisanales, gérées le plus souvent par des femmes indigènes, et nos objectifs plus généraux en matière de politique économique internationale, qui—s'ils se réalisent—vont justement rendre ces industries moins concurrentielles, sinon carrément désuètes.